Real Time Computing offers interdisciplinary connections

Conference posters added to the informative sights in the Atrium.

Posters and ringing bells in the Atrium mean conference time, and 15th Real Time Computing Conference is hosting an estimated 200 physicists, engineers, programmers and students from around the world at the lab through Friday.

"This is really a great opportunity - people can clearly read what other people are doing, but it is nice to meet face to face and take the opportunity to talk," said program chair Margaret Votava of Fermilab's Computing Division.

The conference takes place in odd-numbers years, setting the next one in 2009. Conferences normally rotate between North American and Europe, although Votava said that an Asian site may enter the rotation. The location of the 2009 conference will be announced on Thursday.

"It is good exposure for Fermilab, and a good opportunity for the attendees to talk to Fermilab employees who are not part of the meeting," said Votava, who explained that the attendees often set up meetings or seek out Fermilab employees to talk about their work. She also added that the conference is a great venue for students to submit papers.

Higgins is history quizmaster

FFSE President Marge Bardeen presents Bill Higgins with his prize, a coin well.

Bill Higgins of AD-ES&H won the Fermilab history quiz held by the Fermilab Friends for Science Education during their membership drive last week in the Atrium of Wilson Hall. Bruce Brown of AD-Main Injector, and Rob Atkinson of BSS-Information Services were the runners-up.

The quiz, formulated by lab archivist Adrienne Kolb, included some stumpers. Everyone knew that bison were brought to Fermilab, but no one knew that Canada Geese were also brought here. Their arrival is chronicled in the January 1971 Village Crier.

Click here to see all the quiz questions and answers. FFSE membership information is available here.

-- Rhianna Wisniewski

In the News

Physics News Update, May 1, 2007:

The Efimov Effect: Three's Company, Two's a Crowd

At the April APS meeting in Jacksonville, physicists discussed the recent observations of the Efimov effect, a purely quantum phenomenon whereby two particles such as neutral atoms which ordinarily do not interact strongly with one another join together with a third atom under the right conditions. The trio can then form an infinite number of configurations, or put another way, an infinite number of "bound states" that hold the atoms together.

Acqua alle funi:Water on the ropes

Today's column is written by Marc Ross, head of the Technical Division.

Marc Ross

As accelerator-based science reaches for higher and higher energies and luminosities, collaboration among labs across the world is a necessity. In past columns I have commented on the interdependence between Linear Collider researchers and planners across the globe. Today, I focus on another multi-lab project, the Large Hadron Collider.

Whereas the ILC effort is more or less equally spread across institutions in Europe, Asia and North America, the LHC is a CERN-based project with strong contributions from US DOE labs, KEK, India (RRCAT) and many others.

Since last year, the final assembly, testing and commissioning of the LHC machine and its detectors have been underway. Over the course of the next months, we will watch an amazing transformation as it all begins to work. Those who have had the opportunity to participate in the final stages of construction and the start of commissioning of a collider know how exciting this process is. It is also a challenging time as problems appear and must be overcome.

The words inscribed at the bottom of the obelisk in front of Wilson Hall, acqua alle funi, refer to the impetus, leadership and responsibility that we all must bring to a project like this during critical times. In the LHC effort, Fermilab faces a special challenge as we need to make repairs to the support structure of the LHC focusing magnet triplets. As the assembler and integrator of these triplets, we have a special responsibility and need to sign off on a broad variety of performance requirements. Keeping up with the "big picture" will constantly demand our attention. With added water on the ropes, our team, together with those of our partners, will succeed with present and oncoming challenges.

Announcements

Pine Street entrance reopened
Repaving operations have been completed and the Pine Street entrance is reopen. Striping will take place on Friday, so motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists may have limited access and should exercise caution when travelling Pine Street. Fermilab Today will provide updates.

Good luck, Brandi!
Brandi Myers of Human Resource Services (WDRS) is leaving. Please join us in wishing her goodbye and good luck on Wednesday, May 2, 2007 from 3:15 to 4:30 PM on WH15 South Crossover.

Information Reseources Survey
The Fermilab Information Resources Department requests that you please take a few mintues to complete a survey of users of HEP information systems, such as SPIRES, arXiv, CDS, and others. Developed by the CERN Library with input from the CDS team and SPIRES collaboration, this survey will help the Information Resources department determine how to better serve your information needs. Please share the URL with others.
http://library.cern.ch/poll.html

Farewell to SciTech Director
The SciTech Hands-on Museum will host its annual dinner and silent auction on Sunday, May 20, from 5:30 to 9:00 p.m. at Walter Payton's Roundhouse in Aurora. Come and say farewell to SciTech Executive Director Ronen Mir, who will become the Deputy Director of MadaTech-Israel National Museum of Science. Football celebrity Dan Hampton, 1985 Chicago Bears Super Bowl Champion, will be the guest speaker. More information.

Arbor/Earth Day celebration Thursday
Fermilab will celebrate Arbor Day and Earth Day tomorrow, May 3. Those who want to participate in the tree-planting are encouraged to bring appropriate shoes, gloves and clothing. Tree planting will begin at 11:30 a.m. near the West Wilson Guard House. More information can be found on the Earth Day web site.